Pennsylvania flu deaths rise by two dozen

Feb. 07--Pennsylvania's influenza death toll rose by 26 in the past week, bringing the total number of flu deaths in the state to 91 since the season began Oct. 1, according to the state Department of Health.

Flu season has a long way to go -- it runs through May -- and this year's outbreak has been especially widespread and severe. The flu vaccine, formulated to defend against several strains of the illness, has been largely ineffective against this year's dominant strain, the fast-mutating H3N2 virus.

The headlines are scary, but exactly a century ago, an incredibly virulent flu killed some 50 million people -- perhaps as many as 100 million, some estimates say -- around the world. The so-called Spanish flu is the benchmark against which all other pandemics are measured.

The cities of St. Louis and Philadelphia provided object lessons in how to approach a flu outbreak. In the fall of 1918, St. Louis introduced public health measures to contain the flu within two days of the first reported cases: canceling public gatherings, closing schools, requiring masks and so on.

Philadelphia would impose similar measures, but not for two weeks after the first flu reports. The city even proceeded with a parade to publicize war bonds, with more than 200,000 people lining the streets. Days later, 635 new cases of flu were reported.

The result? The peak mortality rate in St. Louis was one-eighth that of Philadelphia, where some 13,000 died.

That's a bit unnerving, considering as many as 2 million people are expected to attend the Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl victory parade Thursday.

But the current flu isn't nearly as deadly or fast-spreading as the 1918 one. In that outbreak, people could wake up healthy and be mortally ill by nightfall. On Oct. 15, newspapers reported the case of Daniel Malone, a South Bethlehem man who traveled to Shenandoah for the funeral of his brother, a flu victim. Malone was stricken with the flu during the funeral and died quickly died.

There have been more than 47,000 reported cases of the flu in Pennsylvania this flu season, officials said. Of those, 1,541 cases have been reported in Lehigh County, up from 1,185 last week, and 2,343 in Northampton County, up from 1,636 last week.

The flu remains categorized as "widespread" by the department, meaning at least half the regions in the state have outbreaks of the flu. About 600,000 to 2.4 million Pennsylvanians will get the flu this year, experts predict, and 120 to 2,000 will die, according to the health department.

It's the worst outbreak since 2009, when the so-called swine flu -- a variant of the 1918 strain -- killed as many as 200,000 worldwide.

Staff writer Daniel Patrick Sheehan contributed to this story.

matt.coughlin@mcall.com

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